Overwhelmed she was by the consciousness of the
shabbiness of her school frock and worn gloves; pitilessly the sun shone
on them, bringing out the poorness of their quality, and all the defects
of long use and age. It shone on him almost blindingly it seemed to her;
so that to look at him, so fine, so grave, so grand, as he stood before
her hurt her eyes. They had met in one of the principal streets of the
town; the men who passed them looked such miserable creatures, she
thought, beside his tall figure. How had she the presumption to have
pestered him with her degrading troubles!
"Mama was in such sorrow about Bernard," she was impelled to excuse
herself. "Mama wished me to ask your brother, who knew Bernard very well;
but I thought it better not to trouble him. I thought it better, as you
had helped me before, to ask you to help again."
"It is better to come to me," he said with great gravity.
"Your brother is very generous," she went on saying in her nervousness
anything that came into her head. "He would have given us the money
without a thought as to whether it was right or wrong. I should have felt
we were taking advantage of him. It did not seem to me to be right to ask
him."
He wondered as he heard her how she had come to be a Day; and then he too
found himself plunging into a subject he had not, a moment before,
intended to mention.
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